


the drop-in

by wildcard_47



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Hand Jobs, High-Ranking Coworkers with Benefits, M/M, Oral Sex, Welcome to whatever this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 08:54:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24348331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: Turns out, Leo isn't the first or only person in the West Wing reading the Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee's sex education report.Set between 1x11 "Lord John Marbury" and 1x14 "Take Out The Trash Day".
Relationships: John Marbury/Leo McGarry
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	the drop-in

Nursing a bruising headache on a hotel sofa with a six-hundred-page bill on his lap was not high on Leo’s list of current priorities. Neither was reading this damn report, given the fact that he’d had a sixteen hour day. But the idea was being seriously floated in committee by Witwer and Radakowski and about twenty smirking interns holding poster boards with  _ textbook anatomy diagrams _ , and had a half-decent chance of getting into the proposed bill, given the swing votes. So his new priority was to know everything about it, whether he wanted to read the damn proposal or not.

Sighing, Leo flipped to the second page, adjusted his wire-rimmed cheaters, and read under his breath: “In order to help students make decisions that promote healthy behaviors, the Department of Education shall instruct students that abstention from sexual intercourse is the surest and most responsible way to prevent unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and consequent emotional distress. The abstinence-based education program shall…”

Two quick raps on the door, and it opened: Agent Hansen’s usual signal for incoming White House business when Margaret wasn’t around to announce visitors.

“Yeah,” said Leo, without looking over.

“Well, well,” drawled a familiar plummy voice. Leo’s eyes widened in horror as he glanced up and met Lord John Marbury’s triumphant smirk. “So the rumours  _ are _ accurate. I’d have expected your government to have become slightly less puritanical since Faunce the elder bedewed the great rock with his crocodile tears, but I suspect that expectation might be far too charitable an assumption, given only two hundred fifty nine years have passed since that blessed event.”

Leo let the pages fall closed, and removed his glasses. His headache returned full-force. “Didn’t realize you’d become British Ambassador to the House Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee.”

Marbury’s lips quirked up. “Whether your government prefers to waste its time formally legislating educational drivel or preventing preliminary testing of the _Agni and Ghauri three_ along the Line of Control is, of course, none of my concern. I merely brokered the recent handshake agreement between eight disputed border regions and a coalition of frothing NATO members.”

“Real charitable, giving yourself all the credit.” Leo tossed the stack of two hundred pages he’d been holding into the coffee table, and resisted the urge to scrub at the bridge of his nose or his temples. “Shouldn’t you be flying BOAC back to London by now?”

“Ah,” said Marbury, fishing a cigarette from his sport coat with deft hands. Leo caught a flash of red suspenders peeking through the wings of his dark jacket, and suppressed an eyeroll. “Well, as you may recall, Gerald, I promised  _ your president  _ my services for an indeterminate period of several weeks to several months. Given that said president is currently attempting to make good on  _ numerous  _ provisions within our illustrious agreement––”

“All right,” huffed Leo, and looked away.

“––up to and including the aforementioned proliferation of the Ghauri, testing of the heretofore unconfirmed  _ Shaheen two  _ and the exact powers of the  _ National Command Authority _ ––”

“You’ve made your point.” Leo shook his head in an attempt to clear it; this failed to subdue the growing pressure in his clenched jaw. “And you got the President’s schedule. Now, why in god’s name are you at my door at one a.m. about a House subcommittee’s sudden interest in  _ abstinence-plus _ ?”

Sticking the unlit cigarette in his mouth, Marbury flicked dark hair out of his eyes with a barely-there toss of his head, looking less like a man and more like a willful prize horse as he searched his pockets for a lighter. “Whom do you believe had the brilliance to leave his late-night reading atop his desk, where any prurient visitor might glimpse its open and yet depressingly-unscintillating contents?”

“For god’s sake.  _ Lyman. _ ” Leo did pinch the bridge of his nose this time. Josh was a hell of a lot of things, but organized wasn’t one of them. He’d have to talk to Donna in the morning, make sure she started checking the man’s outbox and desk drawers before closing up shop for the night. “Fine. I’ll talk to him.”

“Yes. I imagine you shall.” Marbury stopped palming his chest pockets, and met Leo’s exhausted gaze dead-on. “Now, to business: have you got a light?”

“Yeah.” Leo got up and rifled through the nearest nightstand drawer before returning to his seat on the sofa. Reaching forward, he slid a clear plastic Bic lighter across the coffee table; flamingo-pink with a couple of rhinestones and a cartoon cat sticker still stuck to one side. “Here.”

“Golly,” drawled Marbury as he picked it up, hawkish eyebrows lifting in disdain. He held the plastic lighter up to the flickering lamplight between finger and thumb. “Such singular artisanal craftsmanship.”

“Shut up,” said Leo.

“Where  _ does  _ one find such treasures?”

Leo rolled his eyes again. “Bummed it off a girl in the steno pool during your call to Jammu.”

“Mm.” Marbury lit his cigarette. Smoke lazed through the air as he lowered his hand to one side, and expelled a deep breath. “And kept it.”

Christ, he sure as hell didn’t want to dive into that. Maybe getting a briefing on this thing from Bertie Wooster would be easier than scanning five hundred pages in the brief couple of hours before showering and sleep. Leo pinched the bridge of his nose again before gesturing to the draft of the bill scattered across the coffee table. “All right, Your Lordship. How much of this doorstop did you read?”

“Well.” Marbury sat down, smirking again as he slouched backward into the nearest Eames chair. “Much as I hesitate to perform both your job and mine simultaneously, I shall reveal this much: pages twenty seven through thirty two of your deputy’s copy had extensive highlighting and annotations, suggesting either he, you, or the President to be unfamiliar with the acts listed therein.”

“Don’t fire cheap shots at the President,” growled Leo, but flipped to page twenty seven, where Margaret had placed a blue sticky note denoting he was to read every word. The subheader was pretty pointed.  _ Non-penetrative sexual acts falling under the category of “heavy petting” include.... _ “Oh, god.”

“Yes. I believe that’s what many exclaim during subsection B’s activities.” 

Leo let out a heavy sigh. “Well, the President can’t say any of these words to the press ten months before a midterm.” 

Moral Majority would have a field day.

Wordlessly, Marbury flicked his cigarette over the glass ashtray. His arm dangled loosely and uncomfortably over the side table, but did not immediately return his hand to his mouth. After a moment of letting his fingers hover over the dish, he dropped the still-burning cigarette into the bottom of the shallow bowl. His eyes lingered on Leo’s face until Leo felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and had to turn away.

“What, Marbury?”

“Your head,” came the answer: muted, succinct. “Does it still hurt?”

Leo scoffed at this, but he was too tired to argue the premise. “How the hell did you figure that?”

“Rather easily, as you keep prodding at it.”

With a start, Leo realized that his right palm was fastened to the back of his neck, and that tensed clawed fingers were digging hard into the space between the top of his undershirt and his collar. Flushing, he stopped, and pulled his hand back down, tapping a closed fist against the armrest a couple of times to remind himself to cut it out. “Yeah, well. It’s fine.”

“A likely story,” retorted Marbury, who got up from the Eames chair, sauntering past Leo’s knees to sling himself down on the middle of the sofa, legs akimbo. Leo felt the couch sag and bounce under the sudden change in weight. “Let us pose yet another counterfactual: you, Leo Thomas McGarry, refuse to take so much as a single tablet of paracetemol, lest it send you reeling for a bottle of whisky.”

“It’s called Tylenol here.” Leo glanced away again, dodging the question. He wanted to say something like  _ you’re out of your mind,  _ or  _ would you get out of my space?  _ or  _ what the hell do you care if I take an aspirin?  _ but he couldn’t force his mouth around the words, and all of a sudden Marbury was sitting up, moving closer, his long fingers cupping around the nape of Leo’s neck. Two fingertips began to trace lazy, slow circles just at the base of his hairline. The touch made Leo startle upright. “Why are you––?”

“Don’t move,” Marbury murmured, voice echoing low across the still room, and maybe it was the light pressure of his hand against Leo’s hair, or the soft tickle of his calloused fingertips rippling down Leo’s neck and through his body, but suddenly it was all too clear why Marbury had arrived on his doorstep at one in the morning, whistling that old tune about lousy subcommittees and petty emergencies. Guess that  _ one-time-after-the-K2-deal  _ wasn’t so one-time after all. “Unless you’d prefer something apart from headache relief?”

His other hand brushed the side of Leo’s knee, barely enough to graze his skin through his trousers.

“Must have been some excerpt,” was all Leo said, as Marbury’s palm skated up his inner thigh, rubbing at the tip of his rapidly-hardening cock through the placket of his trousers.

“Generally, I found it insipid and uninspired,” replied Marbury. Leo meant to make a smart remark about how the U.S. House of Representatives didn’t produce bland legislation, but it wasn’t true, and Marbury’s teeth were grazing his earlobe, besides. He shuddered as one of Marbury’s hands thumbed over a nipple, an involuntary groan escaping him, and his head lolled back against the sofa.

“Mm.” Marbury’s shaking fingers were unbuttoning his collared shirt, caressing down thin cotton to palm bare heated skin. “I did, however, think about sucking you all evening.”

“Christ,” hissed Leo, as Marbury sank to his knees between his spread legs, one hand resting on Leo’s thigh for leverage as he leaned in and licked him through thick taut fabric. When he started to suckle at the base of him, Leo’s hips jerked; his legs were already shaking. ”The mouth on you. Christ.”

Marbury was pulling him out now; Marbury was moaning around him as he took him all in. His fingers were brushing the base of Leo’s balls and his tongue was doing that flicking thing that made him swear like a damn Turnpike trucker in the middle of rush hour, Jesus Christ, he wasn’t gonna last, he wasn’t gonna last.

His fingers tightened in Marbury’s hair, and Marbury made a choked gasping noise, writhing into the sofa as he took Leo down even further and relaxed his throat. Leo had him by the hair like a damn dressage pony, riding riding riding that sweet wet heat for as long as he could stand it, loving the way Marbury couldn’t even shut up when he had a hot cock in his mouth, humming and whimpering and scrabbling up against the lip of the sofa like a wild dog who wanted to hump his leg clean off.

“Fuck,” he hissed, shuddering as clever fingers pressed up just behind his balls; groaning, surprised, he spurted into Marbury’s mouth. “Fuck!”

He shook through it, tense and shivering, until his muscles all turned to jelly at the same time, and he collapsed backwards into the sofa, releasing Marbury’s hair from both fists. When Marbury pulled off, his eyes were dark and his voice wasn’t his own; he clambered up to straddle Leo’s lap like a man possessed, trousers already unbuttoned, bucking against Leo’s sensitive cock with a desperate soft noise.

“Christ, you’ve got to––Leo, I’ve––I can’t, please––”

A pleasant shiver rippled down Leo’s spine as Marbury thrust against him again. Panting, he palmed Marbury’s rigid cock through the hole in his silk boxers; Marbury whimpered and thrust forward even faster.

“Nearly there. Oh, god. Nearly came on your leg when you––”

“Yeah, you did,” growled Leo, thumbing at the head; a spurt of liquid smoothed his clumsy caresses. He rounded his hand, palming Marbury’s full length with a twist of his wrist, and that did it; Marbury was gasping out his name and spurting messy into Leo’s hand, all over them both, Christ, oh, Christ, it was hotter than hell.

Trembling, stuttering for breath, Marbury collapsed against his chest, burying his forehead to Leo’s stubbled cheek. His breath fanned hot and humid against Leo’s neck. They didn’t speak for several minutes––or at least, not until Leo had gained back enough brain function to drape a friendly arm across Marbury’s sweat-damp shirt. When he did this, Marbury actually laughed.

“Do you know, I’m meant to re-wear this on Thursday with the grey twill. For the luncheon your office  _ begged  _ its dearest friends to attend. Now the damned thing’s got spunk halfway up the stomach. Absolutely ruined.”

“Ah. That’s a real shame,” Leo drawled, like this was the worst news he could have gotten about some political luncheon. The surge of pride that coursed through his gut at seeing Marbury’s shirt streaked with come was definitely unrelated to any positive feelings he had or might ever have about the oil lobby. “Maybe page thirty three includes a few laundry tips for that sort of thing.”

“Utterly hilarious,” Marbury huffed, but he was smiling ear-to-ear as he pulled away, and tucked himself against the opposite end of the couch. From this angle, he was all elbows and knees. “Anyway. How is your head?”

After the round they’d had, Leo was not at all surprised to discover his headache was gone. “Oh. It’s, ah, better. Thanks.”

“Yes, well. Daresay I serve at your pleasure in this particular instance.” Sighing, sitting up, Marbury glanced around the room before spotting the mini fridge in one corner, and making a pleased noise low in his throat. “Now. Do you think you’ve any bubbly water in there?”

“Probably,” said Leo, and waved a hand at it, relaxing back into the sofa and suppressing the urge to let his eyes flutter closed. “Go on. Help yourself.”

**Author's Note:**

> *waves* Long time watcher, first time posting fic in this fandom! Anyway, I read [this incredible fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/253455) on a recommendation from a friend on Thursday at like 2AM, started into a good old Season 1 rewatch yesterday, and somehow came out with this today. God bless the classic trope of two work rivals with scorching UST getting chippy with each other over nuclear warheads.
> 
> Also, please excuse anything I wrote on late '90s nuclear policy; my geopolitical knowledge of the Kashmir/China/Pakistan borders comes solely from archived news articles and Wikipedia.


End file.
